Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Wednesday evening marked an important date in the congested hearts of any competitive eater. Wednesday was the 3rd preliminary round of the 5th annual Rice and Bean Pot Burrito Eating Contest at Qdoba on Commonwealth Avenue. That’s a mouthful… Students from BU, in seven teams of four students, went head to head in a competitive eating relay race to see which team could eat their burritos first. The relay race began as the first team member ate their burrito as fast as possible. Each teammate was allowed only one beverage, and they must completely eat and swallow their burrito before the next team member could start theirs. It was kind of like Flip Cup, but I’ve never played. Ahem. Any pieces of food that were dropped, or spit up onto their plate needed to be consumed in order to finish. Delicious.

Earlier preliminary rounds at Boston College, and Northeastern University took place late last month, but Wednesday was BU’s night to shine. BU’s burrito enthusiasts showed up to in hopes of winning Wednesday’s round and moving to the finals on February 10th at The Paradise Rock Club on Comm Ave. (You could say, we have home food court advantage, perhaps?). Methods of preparation and eating strategies varied from team to team, such as Team Muffin, who practiced by playing Super Smash Brothers, making t-shirts with their team name displayed on the front and thinking delicious thoughts to try to salivate as they devoured their burrito. "Team Buddies," however, did not prepare in advance and were just hungry.

Once the clocks started, (Shield your eyes, third world countries…) team members stuffed their faces with the biggest bite their mouths could handle. Techniques included but were not limited to… the old school method of dunking the burrito in water, taking an offensively large bite and then chewing as fast as possible, the timeless mouthful combined with water, and my personal favorite, throwing it up, and giving it a second go. EMTs were on the scene in the event a burrito needed to be extracted.

In the end, BU’s Team Swayze clocked in at an amazing 2 minutes 49 seconds, averaging about 42 seconds for each team member to eat their burrito. On Tuesday they will compete against teams from Boston College, North Eastern University, and Harvard University for a chance at the title and a trip to Mexico. Team Swayze has some pressure though; BU has won two out of the five championships, including a win last year. Don’t forget to go to the finals February 10th at 6:30 and watch BU defend their title. Prepare for glory! Show up and give them some support. And an antacid.